Cormorant Alone

 

Cormorant Alone

 

          for Jessica

 

and holding its own

the soaked bird opens

its wings to the Kalamata

water-road and the spread loam

of cloud.  I can see each

 

discrete drop of water

on the scored webbing of

its four toes.  Is this bird

sitting there on a half-sunk

mud-stuck pine limb that’s

 

hunched up and also under

the withdrawing pond

water (water that will   

finally fall down the dam wall)

drying itself for flight

or for the simple light

breeze stirring each

 

feather pressing and letting

a lift like a composer

at her key or string or reed

become a listening

a new way to touch and be

touched see how

 

the hover and pluck

the tongue and lip

is pitch is tipped

into the listed

ear then into the wind

that’s sifted of the dust

from the lintel of the sun-

touched is lifting

it from the wing

 

into the lightness

of wind.  see then

the shedding

water? how it drops

onto the pond and is

instantly invisible

see how it is its own kind

of falling?  see the cormorant

crouch at its knee

to take wing

 

skyward or waterward

depending on which fish

it wants?  how can

either of these be less

 

than the right choice?

Or how can being neither

while simply sitting there

wings wide and drying

in the fading day

be less than the moment

that grounded it

it too

a momentary way-

station to flight?